


Bruise-lights

by Trojie



Series: How Not To Pull Your Punches [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Boxing & Fisticuffs, Casual Sex, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:17:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They have two hours - Arthur told Cobb they were taking a long lunch. How much of Arthur can Eames ruin in two hours?</p><p>How much of Eames can Arthur break in that time?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruise-lights

**Author's Note:**

> Bare-knuckle-boxing-as-foreplay, written originally for Photoclerk. It's probably fairly obvious from this fic that I am not actually a boxer. Apologies to real boxers.

One of the truths about boxing is that when bare-knuckle fighting was legal, fatalities were almost unknown. It's hard work, killing a man with a bare, closed fist. You can bruise them and break them all you like, but you'll bruise and break yourself equally. Hitting someone hard enough to kill them will hurt you like nothing else.

So fighting bare-handed is an interesting exercise in weighing up how much pain you can take in order to inflict a certain amount on your opponent. And there's an art to it.

Eames took up boxing when he was a nipper, a long time before his name was Eames or he'd worked out, y'know, that the feeling of a hit well-placed, a blow dodged, that warm delight of endorphins and adrenaline, could be directed down another avenue than simply defeating someone.

Arthur's the first person he's ever met who understands that, who'll spar with him outside a ring and let it go ... places it's not necessarily supposed to.

They keep it to body-shots. They both need their faces unmarked. But they don't pull their punches, literally or figuratively. And Eames is fairly certain Arthur gets a kind of Tyler-Durden-esque little thrill out of buttoning up his pristine cream shirts over mottled, black and blue skin and aching ribs in the mornings.

Eames likes the heat of taking a hit. He doesn't like how the bruises last, but he's too addicted to the spike of the pain and the sweet sting of Arthur's smile to stop taking him up on every offer to spar.

So he binds his fists in linen bandages in a vain attempt not to split them, and he strips his shirt off, and he waits for Arthur to do likewise. They've hired a room at the local gym and they've got two hours. It's just a room - mirrored on two walls for dance classes or whatever - and there's no ring, but that's fine. There's space, the floor's sprung, and they've got a towel each so anything they might splash on the floor (sweat, blood, other bodily fluids) can be cleaned up. It's all they need.

Eames looks over at Arthur, tightening the laces on his sweatpants, and feels hungry. It's been three months since they were last in the same city, and the purple smudges Eames remembers leaving all over Arthur's hips and the yellow and red marks that painted his ribs the last time they parted company are all gone. Instead Arthur's skin is pale, smooth coffee stretched tight over sleek muscle. Eames can see tiny faint shadows that would let him count Arthur's ribs if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to do anything so delicate, and the flash of Arthur's dimples he sees when the point man looks up to see him staring tells him Arthur's going to goad him to the point of red mist today.

They have two hours - Arthur told Cobb they were taking a long lunch. How much of Arthur can he ruin in two hours?

How much of Eames can Arthur break in that time?

'Again,' Arthur pants, a little hunched, fists up and forearms guarding his torso. 'C'mon, Eames, hit me _again_.'

Or try, at least. Eames hasn't landed the last three attempted blows and he probably won't land this one - Arthur is fast like a snake and he always manages to land little jab after little jab on Eames's bigger frame til the forger is blotched like a Dalmatian before starting to let any of Eames's blows through.

And it is _letting_ them through, just like Eames _lets_ Arthur's early shots in. If they were going to actually play to the hilt, they'd be here a long time. But Eames likes the spark-like play of heat down his body every time Arthur lands a blow, and he likes that Arthur's sweatpants are slipping lower and lower on his taut little hips as he works up a sweat.

Arthur feints left so Eames swings right, and it connects this time - a solid blow that momentarily throws Arthur off-balance, and Eames grins, because now it's game on. Arthur drops his guard and slams into Eames, trying to pull him in to punch repeatedly at his ribs. It's ridiculous, little bantam Arthur doing this, because they may be roughly of a height (Arthur's actually got a slight advantage in that department), but Eames is, even at his slightest, built like a brick shithouse compared to him.

And yet Arthur's grip is like steel and his fists are stony where they connect with Eames's flesh and bone. Eames gets a grip and throws Arthur away and chucks a left hook after him, and has him over, flat on his back on the polished wood floor.

Eames breathes hard, waits a split-second just in case he's actually hurt Arthur - a fall flat on the spine can do some damage - but then Arthur props himself up on his forearms and smiles a sun-bright, dangerous sliver of a smile, and brings one hand up and crooks a finger, and Eames is on him so fast he barely registers the distance.

Arthur's rabbit-punch to Eames's jaw is unexpected when it shouldn't be. His straining, heavy cock pressing against Eames's inseams is right on cue, however.

'Hey, nothing visible,' Eames says, grabbing Arthur's fists and grinding down. 'You know the rules - you made them.'

'I didn't hit you that hard,' Arthur says, grinning up at him and rolling his body like a tidal wave. 'D'you want it?'

'It' is Arthur's body, and 'it' is more fighting, and 'it' is that glorious sensation you only get from physicality and purpose combined.

'Of course I fucking want it,' Eames growls, and rolls so Arthur's on top with his wrists still clamped in Eames's fingers. 'Are you going to give it to me?'

'Everything I've got,' Arthur confirms. 'Provided you don't chicken out on me.'

Other people have safewords, and other people tap out, and other people, basically, do this sensibly. Arthur and Eames have one rule - as long as you can fight, you fight. If someone goes limp, it stops. It _stops._

So Eames jerks up under Arthur, buries his fingernails in the skin of Arthur's hips, and waits. Sure as shit, Arthur's fists come down, one-two, to the sides of Eames's torso. And they keep coming down while Eames fights primarily with Arthur's drawstring, rather than bothering to dodge.

The fists stop flying when Eames wrestles Arthur's trousers down - instead Arthur's fingers tuck tight beneath Eames's arms and he squeezes. Eames gets his hand around Arthur's cock and feels Arthur's fingernails bite into his skin.

Which is about when Arthur decides he's having none of this supine business, and, losing his sweatpants entirely in the process, hauls Eames by his neck up against one of the mirrored walls. Naked, aroused and marked like Jackson Pollock had mainlined the Queensberry rules and then used Arthur's skin as a canvas, the point-man twists to swap their positions and then pulls Eames hard back into him.

'We've got fifteen minutes,' he growls, a grin still lighting up his face like the Woolworths' sales, 'Fucking make me feel it.'

Eames bulls in closer, feels Arthur's hands come in behind to tear the shorts off him, and starts biting at the linen on his fists, trying to loosen the bandages without having to stop and actually employ manual dexterity to get it done. He wants his hand on Arthur's cock, skin-to-skin, and he wants it _now_.

'Leave it,' Arthur says roughly, shoving Eames's shorts down. 'You can make love to me all you like later. Right now -' he says, leaving it hanging as Eames knuckles his way down the soft insides of Arthur's thighs, dragging the coarse cloth there hard enough to scrape red. Arthur's soft mouth falls open, and it's just as red inside, just as wet, with marks where he's bitten at himself during this little game they play.

Eames's own cock is pushing at Arthur's hipbone. Arthur gets his own harsh, calloused fingers on it, and Eames feels like he's maybe going to go a little delirious with it. Arthur's right. Right now is not a skin-on-skin moment, it's a _corps-a-corps_ moment - a body to body duel.

Fuck, but Eames loves Arthur like this, all vicious and wanting. He's too sweet, too good to be true, the way he presents to everyone else - caring and calm to Ariadne, competent to Cobb, cynical to Yusuf, Saito, anyone else who he doesn't know or want close. And a right cruel cunt to Eames if he wants to be. Arthur's capable of it all, and none of it's an act.

They shove against each other until they can entwine hands around themselves, and Eames avoids meeting his own eyes in the mirror - he'd rather curl his head in to watch Arthur as he pants and swears and sweats his way to a climax. When Arthur starts to jerk and shake within the cradle of Eames's arms, Eames knows he's close. And when Arthur comes hot over their fists it's not long before Eames follows.

They mop up with their towels, and they fold themselves back into presentable clothes for facing the rest of the team in, and it's only when Eames starts to unwrap his bandaged fists, very last of all, that he notices the split skin on the second knuckle of his right hand. He inspects it quickly, but it's not bad, and it's mostly scabbed over already. He rolls his bandages instead of fretting over spilled milk, as it were.

'Give me that,' Arthur says, sliding over with his delicate wool jumper tidying away the mess Eames has made of his body. He looks at Eames's little cut with cool eyes, and then raises Eames's fist to his mouth, and kisses it. His lips are hot against the hurt.

The next day the team splits up, and Eames is jealous. Arthur has the taste of Eames's blood on his tongue to remember with. All Eames has is the knowledge he's let Arthur get under his skin again.


End file.
